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Rh mankind. Then were fulfilled the words of the mystical Prophet, “I am a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me, laugh me to scornː they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord, that he would deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.”—

There is not a circumstance in the history of mankind so ignominous, and to an ingenuous nature so tormenting, as the following which is recorded by the Evangelists.— Pilate said, “Shall I release Jesus? they all cried, not this man,” but Barabbas. Now Barabbas was a robber.

There is a misapprehension into which we are apt to fall, in considering the sufferings of Jesus Christ. Whenever he appears before our eyes, the splendour of his Divinity overcomes the mind, and in the Lord of Glory, the man of sorrows is forgotten. But, my friends, you are to remember that as God is by his nature incapable of pain or sorrow, in all scenes of distress, the Divinity withdrew, that the Humanity might suffer. Yes, Christians, the man Christ Jesus was like one of ourselves, as encompassed with the same infirmities, and subjected to the same distresses; as accessible to sorrow, and as sensible of ignomy and pain.

Thirdly, Our Lord died in a state, where after undergoing an agony of spirit, he was at last forsaken by his Father in heaven.—